Terror Warnings Used to Scare Electorate Now Inoperative

As Jan. 20 Nears, Terror Warnings Drop: In April, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that al Qaeda terrorists might strike during this week's presidential inauguration festivities in Washington. The warning was part of a drumbeat sounded by U.S. officials throughout 2004 that terrorists were seeking to launch attacks both during and after the election season.

Nine months later, the threat level has been lowered, and Ridge, speaking at a news conference last week, said there is no evidence of a plot to disrupt President Bush's inauguration. Previous warnings, Ridge explained, stemmed from threat reports tied to the elections — not to the inauguration more than two months later.

In other words, we lied to you then, and now we're lying to you about what we said then. And by the way Social Security is in crisis, and we're not thinking about invading Iran.

6 Responses to Terror Warnings Used to Scare Electorate Now Inoperative

I have never been in favor of the Homeland Security Dept it is an unneeded part of government. However since it was you liberals who cried that the administration had not done enough before sept 11, we now have a government agency that warns us about everything, these same reports used to come out before 9-11 only now they are highly publicized. So i guess when it comes to you liberals, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

what is the homeland security dept supposed to do? Are they expected not to warn peolple when they percieve a threat? These conspiracy theories about creating panic in order to stay in power are silly. No one is trying to scare the American people. The world is dangerous place, it’s just that since 9-11 the American people KNOW it’s a dangerous place.

Nigel,
You can’t dismiss something by just calling something a “conspiracy theory.” If you’re going to argue against the reasoning behind a post, you’ll need to offer proofs about the merits of specific arguments. Any two-year-old can argue by assertion and by calling people names, and I hope that Republican trolls can offer better than that.

Nobody here thinks that the government should not warn the public in the event of a known danger, so enough of that nonsense. What I do see here is disgust that warnings have consistently emerged that were based on embarrassingly poor evidence or no evidence at all (except poll data showing Bush’s approval ratings in decline, or the advent of bad press coverage). This latter point is well documented in Michael’s earlier posts as in this one, so these facts are no longer in contention. Would you thus care to provide a plausible alternative reason why a government agency might sound the alarm for no reason at all, but that, by sheer coincidence, seemed to occur whenever Bush was in a pickle?